number 9

i want you to tell me what you did. what poison could i take, in los angeles bars. your bars. i was one too. a troller for lovers. a man without country. a useless believer in things i couldn't see. you sat in your sweatshirt, sweaty and starving you pulled up your chair and told me to love you. i need you to be calling, i need you to want me. not just want me, but have to get to the deepest part, the thing that no one can get to. tell me your greatest fear. and what you lost at the station. we might travel. without cigarettes, or marriage vows or gods, but we are sometimes giants, sometimes children stabbing our hands deep in the mud searching for the thing that is not there. we say we heard of its existence, in tales by our mothers. our beautiful mothers, who read to us fairytales, where lovers are forever and the ache leaves when the bird dies on that white rose turning it red. it was for you, i could say it, but i'd be lying. it was for me. partly. can i say the thing i cannot say? i couldn't say? i shouldn't say? i miss you. i'm sorry. your eyes are like garnets. your hair made me happy. my hands need to touch you. i want what's inside you. i'm sorry i hurt you. i want you to hold me. i wanted to tell you. my neck misses you too. my heart can still hear you. your silence is working if that's what you want. i read it in ashes. in glorious ashes, that you like it if i remember you without me. i don't. i cannot. i can only see your body pressed on mine. the image is burning. the image of you. without water and endlessly deep. falling.